The author of the beloved novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower has finally announced his second book!

The new novel is titled Imaginary Friend and will arrive in Fall 2019. According to a synopsis and new remarks from Chbsoky, it’s going to be very different from Perks, which was published in 1999.

In the synopsis provided to EW, Imaginary Friend “focuses on Kate Reese, a single mother fleeing an abusive relationship by starting over in a new town, with her young son Christopher. Her world begins to unravel after Christopher vanishes into the Mission Street Woods – where fifty years earlier an eerily similar disappearance occurred.

When her son emerges six days later unharmed but not unchanged, he brings with him a secret: a voice only he can hear and a warning of the tragedy to come to the real world if he fails to protect it. Soon Kate and Christopher find themselves in the fight of their lives, caught in the middle of a war playing out between good and evil, with their small town as the battle ground.”

Said Chbosky about the book: “Do you remember when you were a little kid and you would look up into the clouds?
Remember how the clouds would look like the shape of a dog or a tree or a face? Well, what if you were a little 7-year-old kid now? With a single mom. And no money. And what if you couldn’t help but notice that for the last two weeks, you looked up into the clouds, and it was always the same face staring back at you? That is the origin of my story.”

Despite putting 20 years in between his two books, Chbosky has been busy over the past few years with a couple high-profile projects: He directed the book to film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower starring Emma Watson and Logan Lerman. He also wrote the screenplay to last year’s hit film Wonder and the live-action Beauty and the Beast.

Notably, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Grand Central Publishing Ben Sevier calls Imaginary Friend “an epic work of imagination by one of our great storytellers.” We can’t wait!